Aziz Ansari's Master of None Could Be the Comedy Millennials Deserve

Getting a TV show has always been something of a rite of passage for comedians who have made it to the big time, but it's something that's been taken to an entirely new level in the streaming era. Call it the Louie Effect: Comedy is a place for people with important things to say about the world, but now they're able to say them on television (or a television-like service) in weirder, more interesting, and idiosyncratic ways than before.

Aziz Ansari is the latest comic voice to have the keys to a single-camera comedy handed to him, and in a few short weeks, his series—Master of None, co-created with Parks and Recreation writer Alan Yang—will premiere on Netflix. It looks like fun.

Sure, it's just a trailer, but it's one that seems to suggest Master of None will color in new shades of what's thus far defined Ansari's oeuvre—a fascination with the paradoxes of modern romance and commitment, navigating casual racism while sorting out his own racial identity, and a wholehearted, borderline-distracting obsession with food.

In his choice of subject matter, Ansari has become something of a generational voice—being 32, he's at the tail end of what we call "millennial," and his comedy often centers squarely on the hangups and proclivities of a generation he very nearly missed the boat on. It's that combination of age and a creative output fueled almost entirely by incessant curiosity—so much of his work spins out of the question why are we this way?—that makes him ideally suited to examining the current hyper-connected generation of idealistic enthusiasts, and the ways they're equal parts shitty and wonderful to each other.

But what makes Ansari most appealing in his position as a millennial voice is that he makes no claims to be any such thing. He barely understands why he is the way he is. But he wants to find out.

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